


maybe we're out of our minds (but we're never going out of style)

by nonbinarynino



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Minor Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-06-27 14:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15686940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarynino/pseuds/nonbinarynino
Summary: Katie opens her mouth to say something but closes it. Keith doesn't even bother attempting, and just looks at her, as though she's an answer to a difficult question. It's not anything romantic or sensual or whatever - it's just ...relieved.-Pidge and Keith meet before the universe falls apart. It changes both everything and nothing at all.





	maybe we're out of our minds (but we're never going out of style)

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmate AU where Keith has always lived with Shiro. They're not biologically related for Galra reasons but they're each other's brothers in this.

"Katie, I  _do_ expect you to be on your best behavior tonight," her father says as he washes dishes over the sink. On one of his rare days off from work, he has of course designated it to cleaning up and preparing for company. "Takashi Shirogane is a very respectable man, and I expect you to treat he and his brother like very distinguished guests, alright?"

"Yes, Dad," she huffs, tugging the sleeves of her dress up due to an itch. The six words etched into her skin stand proud - black cursive against the paleness of her forearm.  "I'll be good! I always am. Do you need help with anything?"

At that, he looks over his shoulder at her, gaze kind. "No, honey, I think I've got it from here. They'll be here in an hour, have you done any of your homework?"

"...No." She usually  _does_ do her homework right away, but this particular subject was something she had learned a few years ago, so she knew that she could do it in just a handful of minutes.  _That,_ and the low-level homework that her teacher usually gives her means that they will be a very,  _very_ boring handful of minutes. "I'll go do it now, Dad. Let me know if I can do anything actually  _interesting_!"

He laughs at her on her way up the stairs.

 

* * *

 

She spends the next hour (well, fifty-two minutes if you don't count the time she spent on her homework) alternating between studying for the Garrison test and staring at the ceiling. She's  _excited_ to meet Takashi Shirogane, who's apparently one of the best and youngest pilots that the Garrison has ever had. There's also the fact that he, along with Matt and her dad, had been assigned about six months ago to go on the Kerberos mission, one that will be taking place in just a few more months. She might as well meet the pilot that she'll be trusting the lives of her family with, right?

And then there's Shirogane's brother. Katie doesn't know much about him, just the fact that he's a very good pilot with a very strong temper. She thinks that he only has a year left before he graduates, but she's not entirely sure. Hell, she's not even sure how his brother can  _come_ to stuff like family dinners, given the strictness of the Garrison that she's heard horror stories of from Matt. Does he sneak out with Shirogane's permission? Does he get special treatment?

Which is why when her father calls her down for dinner, she abandons her prior activities with haste, tugs her sleeves back down, and comes scrambling down the stairs. She trips on the last step and  _falls,_ but a hand steadies her. She looks up to see Matt, smiling down at her. "Always in a hurry, huh, Pidge?"

"Shut up," she huffs, and looks at their guests. Shirogane looks the same as all of the pictures and videos had suggested him to be - tall, broad, handsome. His face is fixated into an amused grin when he looks at her, and a shot of embarrassment goes through Katie's veins. Why'd she have to trip in front of a  _fighter pilot_?

"You must be Katie," he says, extending his hand out to her. He has a firm handshake, the kind that makes her hand ache a slight bit after. "I go by Shiro."

"Shiro," she repeats, smiling. She hopes that she doesn't look too starstruck. "Nice to meet you."

It's only then that she turns to meet Shiro's brother. "This is Keith," he says, and the boy in question raises his hand in a greeting. That seems to be all there is to it, which Katie is fine with. She does the same in return, eyeing him up and down. He's ... conventionally attractive, she supposes, though he looks to be deep in his emo phase. The mullet is interesting.

She feels  _something,_ when she looks at him, somewhat similar to what she feels when Matt stands up for her or when her father speaks highly of her intellect. Something that feels warm, and bizarrely  _correct,_ which makes absolutely no sense at all.

Her mother drifts in from the kitchen, apron still tied around her waist. She beckons Shiro and Keith into the dining room, a stern glance sent Katie and Matt's way to tell them to stop fooling around. Katie giggles, and Matt shoves her lightly for giggling, and then they have a shoving contest in the middle of the hallway, directly in front of one of the most famous pilots of the century.

Shiro, however, pretends not to have seen, but the fond smile on his face proves otherwise. Keith stares pointedly at the walls until Shiro takes his seat at the dining table, after which he does the same. There's something uncomfortable in the air, underneath the strong tones of familial love that practically bounce off of the walls. The mere fact of that is enough to comfort Katie as she sits down in between Matt and her father, with the two guests on the other side of the table and her mother at the other end.

She follows the majority of their conversation intently, noting the points where the subject will change abruptly or taper off altogether. There's still so much confidential about the Kerberos mission, but the confidentiality mingles with excitement, so much of the conversation ends with her dad shushing Matt or Shiro coughing awkwardly. Katie finds herself making eye contact with Keith at one of these points, who raises his eyebrow at her. All Katie can do is hold in a laugh and pretend to listen to her mother's subject change.

"So, Katie," her mother says, cutting away at the vegetables that she's cooked, "anything interesting happening at school this week? Any projects or events?"

It's embarrassing, talking about issues at her high school when her family is going off to  _outer space._ "Uh... not much? Oh, but I'm  _super_ annoyed 'cause Mrs. Dornan is making me do a partner project w- oh, shoot."

Matt has forgotten his silverware in favor of folding his hands together tightly, staring at Katie with a tight-lipped expression. "Who are you being partnered with, Pidge?" he asks, tone too pleasant to be sincere. He seems unaware of the tension in the atmosphere that he's just created, but he has heard enough horror stories about her classmates for it to be warranted.

Katie pouts, suddenly wishing that she had never brought anything up at all. "Trevor Cunningham."

Matt goes from fake happy to  _pissed._ "The same Trevor Cunningham who gave you a concussion?"

"...Yes." Katie looks down at her plate and does  _not_ look at either of the guests. She already hates that their first impression of her is this weak thing, so she hopes that Matt doesn't make it worse by going into detail about the incident. "But that was like, five months ago!"

"I'm going to  _storm_ back into that school and-"

"Matt," her father says, stern. Matt usually opts for lifting Katie out of bad moods instead of this whole fierce older brother act, but there are a few specific bullying incidents that set him off. At the sound of their father's voice, however, Matt goes quiet. "I  _knew_ that name sounded familiar," her dad continues. "He's a year older than you, right, Katie? I think his application to the Garrison just came in."

"Burn it," Matt says immediately. Katie risks a glance at him to see that his eyes are trained on their father, eyes angry and pleading at the same time. "I'll burn it. The Garrison will do it if we all ask them, right? Especially if we mention the violent past component?"

"I don't believe that he'd still be qualified for admission if any ...  _concussion-inducing_ incidents are brought to light," Shiro speaks up for the first time since the subject change. "Whether kept off the record or not." After that, he sends a small smile Katie's way, who goes pink under the attention. "Sorry to hear about that, by the way."

"It's-"

"It's not fine," Matt says. "She's the smartest kid in that  _entire_ school and they all gotta compensate by being jerks and putting their hands-"

" _Matt,_ " her mom says, firm, attempting to stop him from intensifying the situation any further.

"I kind of hope I drown while drinking my water," Katie says to nobody at all, a little mournfully and a little jokingly. Shiro gives her a sad smile, and Keith silently passes his glass over to her.

 

* * *

 

Katie opts to help with the dishes after dinner, mainly so that she'll have some time to herself. Bullying in her school is something unfortunately frequent. The kids in that high school are almost all going to the Garrison or similar stellar schools, so most of it gets swept under the rug. She's grown accustomed to it, but she hasn't grown accustomed to  _talking_ about it.

She does the dishes in silence, finding the repetitive motion of scrubbing a sponge against the various plates or silverware. 

She actually doesn't  _mind_ doing the dishes like most people do. Sure, she'd much rather be tinkering or stargazing or  _thinking,_ but the brainless chore helps her clear her mind when she gets stuck on a particularly difficult project or issue. This, Katie supposes, could count as a difficult issue. She'll need to find a way to get out of that partner project,  _and_ she'll need to find a way to convince Matt not to do something radical...

A knock sounds on the kitchen door, and when she looks up, she's surprised to see Keith. He offers her a smile, a little forced, and gestures towards the dishes. He doesn't seem to be the talking type - to be completely honest, Katie isn't even sure if he  _does_ speak. That seems fine to her, though, since she's always talked enough to fill all the voids in a room.

 _Mom will kill me if she finds out I'm letting a guest help out with the dishes,_ she thinks, though it's more humorous to her than anything else. They wordlessly pick up a system - she washes, he dries. For a minute or so, neither of them talk or even look at each other that much, but he speaks up first.

"Is your brother always that overprotective of you?" he asks. She looks up at him in surprise, and even though she  _knows,_ it doesn't quite sink in yet. He keeps drying the bowl in front of him, unaware of the change.

"You should have seen him last year," Katie replies, slowly, and puts down the fork she had been holding in favor of rolling up the sleeve of her dress.  _Is your brother always that overprotective of you_? is there, just like it's always been. Matt has always been so proud of it.

Keith turns to look at her slowly, almost as if he's nervous of what he's about to see. When he finally does lay his eyes on her, specifically her arm, his expression shifts to  _something._ She can't tell if it's anxiety or shock.

Instead of saying anything, he pulls up his own sleeve.  _You should have seen him last year._ is printed on his arm, in her handwriting, and in the same spot that her soulmark is on  _her_ arm.

"Oh, man," she says, instead of anything useful, "I'm sorry that you have my ugly handwriting on your body."

For the first time, Katie sees Keith laugh. It's nothing big, just a huff with a small smile. She wonders if that's how he always laughs, or if it's something that she'll have to unlock with time. She decides, right then, that it's worth the wait to find out. Soulmates have a lot of discrepancies, sure, with some of them being platonic or one-sided, but there's always an advantage to exploring the relationship. There's always  _hope._

The two of them finish washing and drying the dishes, not saying anything even though it seems that the entire world has shifted a little. Putting the dishes away is a quick task that she takes care of herself, since Keith has no idea where anything is.

Katie opens her mouth to say something but closes it. Keith doesn't even bother attempting, and just  _looks_ at her, as though she's an answer to a difficult question. It's not anything romantic or sensual or whatever - it's just ...  _relieved._

"Pidge, our guests are leaving!" Matt calls, poking his head through the door from where Keith had left it open. He looks at them and grins. "Stop flirting with the company!"

"I am  _not,_ " she says, following him to the door. "Keith was just saving me from boredom."

Saying goodbye to Shiro is a little awkward, but it’s easy for her to tell that he’s a good guy, the type that she can easily trust her family with. Most of the time spent saying goodbye is conversation in between her dad and Shiro that she feels too awkward to butt into, so she stares at Keith's shoes instead.

"I'd love it if we had a dinner at my apartment sometime," Shiro says. "That apartment's too big for just me and Keith. We could use the company."

"Katie could come, right?" Keith says, and she moves her gaze to look at him with wide eyes. He doesn't even look embarrassed to have name-dropped her like that, though he quirks a corner of his lip up at the sight of her surprise. Matt is giving a similar look to Katie herself, and he's a pretty smart guy, so she wonders if he's connecting the dots between her soulmark and the way that he had acted at dinner. "C'mon Shiro, give me  _someone_ to talk to during your confidential conversations."

Shiro just laughs. "Of course you're invited, Katie," he says, reaching out his hand to her. She shakes it for the second time that day. "I hope everything works out."

"Thanks," Katie says. "Um, with you too. Not that you really  _need_ anything to be worked out, but, uh-"

"You're rambling," Matt informs her, as if she hasn't already noticed. He bumps her out of the way in order to say goodbye to Shiro, which leaves her and Keith standing directly in front of each other.

"Uh," she says, always the eloquent one. "Don't be a stranger, 'kay?"

"I won't," he tells her, and that's the last thing that he says before the two of them leave. He  _does_ turn back and smile at her on his way out the door, though, something that leaves her with her cheeks burning.

True to her theory, Matt rounds on her the second that the guests leave. "Is  _Keith_ your soulmate?"

"Yes." There's no point in lying about something so fundamental.

"Oh my God, what did you say back to him? Shiro's brother has words about  _me_ on his body, that's so cool-"

"Now you'rerambling," Katie informs him, grinning. He hugs her, lifting her off of the ground with a laugh. Events like this require celebration, right?

 

* * *

 

Katie doesn't see Keith for another few weeks. She doesn't forget him,  _couldn't_ even if she tried, but she almost forgets about the plan to meet up with Keith and Shiro for dinner in the chaos of what happens after. She aces the stupid partner project, violent classmates be damned, follows Matt around like a lost puppy, and studies for the Garrison. It's not so much different from what she does normally, but the knowledge that time is ticking down until the day that two members of her family leave makes every interaction with them more  _important._

So forgive her for spilling water all over herself in surprise when her mother casually mentions that they're going to Takashi Shirogane's apartment for dinner that night. Her mother shrieks at the surprise and frantically grabs a hand towel, but Matt just laughs at her. He must be heading to the Garrison, already in his uniform, but he seems not to be in a hurry as he fixes himself some toast. "Excited to see your  _soulmate,_ Pidge?"

"Oh, hush, Matt," her mother says, rolling her eyes as she dabs Katie's shirt, ignoring the protests of  _God, mom, I can do it!_ "Katie found her soulmate at  _fourteen!_  I met your father at -"

"Twenty-nine," Matt and Katie say in sync, giving each other shit-eating grins. "We've heard a billion times."

"Oh, I suppose so," Colleen sighs. "Katie, I'd be quick about changing your shirt. We have to run errands after I pick you up, so we won't have time to stop home."

"I'll be fine," she answers, still a little light-headed at the idea of seeing her  _soulmate_ again for the first time in almost a month. She leaves the kitchen to head up the stairs, snagging a slice of toast from Matt's plate. He doesn't even protest, just glares at her and reaches for another piece of bread to put in the toaster. "If you're gone before I come back down, see you tonight, Matt!"

"I'm on my way out, yeah," he agrees. "Hey Pidge, if I see Keith at the Garrison, I'll make sure to tell him how  _excited_ you are to see him again!"

"You  _wouldn't_!" she yells downstairs as she goes into her room.  _Okay, heck,_ _now I have five seconds to find something to wear for tonight, too._

Katie has never really been the type of girl to struggle too much about what she wants to wear. Perhaps it's because she never really has had a  _reason_ to be stressed about it. There are no cute boys or girls at her school that she wants to impress, no formal events like weddings or dances that she's been invited to. Whenever she goes to school, she just throws on a dress so that she won't have to bother with matching her clothes and calls it a day.

But she's seeing her  _soulmate_ today, for the first time in a few weeks, and this is a big moment, right? Soulmates are destined to spend their entire lives intertwined in some way. If anything romantic happens between her and Keith, she's sure that it won't be for a few more years, since she's fourteen to his seventeen. Granted, she has no idea if Keith is a romantic type of soulmate, or if they'll fall into a different type of pace, but either way, it's important to make a good impression, right? Right?

Ugh. Katie is  _so_ out of her depth. She would ask her mother, but then she'd probably get a lecture about how she should just be herself and that a real soulmate wouldn't care. Sure, they probably  _wouldn't_ care, but that doesn't mean that she shouldn't try!

She ends up laying out everything in her closet. A green dress with a ribbon tied around the middle, a pretty blue one with a floral design, a flannel, a leather jacket... Abruptly, she realizes that all of her shirts are long sleeves. She  _has_ been kind of hiding her soulmark, not out of shame but due to not wanting to interfere with any first encounters with a soulmate. That's kind of useless now, right? 

 _Let's live a little,_ she decides, and slips on the flannel. It's red, like the color that Keith's jacket had been that night at her house. The fact that she  _remembers_ something like that is enough to send her cheeks red, too. 

She rolls up the sleeves so that they only go down to her elbow, her soulmark on display. Maybe not wearing a dress will be a  _good_ thing, because it will look like she isn't trying too hard. It's ironic, though, that dresses are always seen as some fancy thing, but she only really wears them for the convenience of it all.

Her mother yells from downstairs for her to hurry up, but she's too busy grinning.

 

* * *

 

Shiro and Keith's apartment is small, but clean and modern. The walls are a sleek white, with little pictures hanging upon them. There are some holes in the wall where pictures used to be, but the ones that _are_ hanging up are cute, with Shiro beaming while holding a college degree, Keith on Shiro's shoulders, and Keith with a soccer trophy in his hand, grinning with dirt splattered all over his face. She finds herself smiling at the last one.

Shiro hugs her upon greeting her before even saying hello to anybody else, a sure sign that he knows about her being Keith's soulmate. She laughs in surprise but hugs him back. "It's nice to see you again, Katie," he says, clearly pleased. "Keith is probably still in his room, I'll tell him that you're here in a minute."

"Nice to see you too," Katie responds, unable to contain her smile as she pulls away. "I like your apartment!"

"Thank you!" Shiro says, equally enthusiastic. "It's small, sure, but it's home." He goes to embrace the rest of her family, so she steps out of the way. 

The sound of a door opening and shutting again draws her attention, and there's Keith, walking towards them with a sheepish look on his face. "No need to tell me anything," he says, voice only a little bit awkward. "Hey, guys. Katie." He gives her a grin and a wave, much more genuine than the first one from a month ago, and she eagerly returns it.

"Keith," she replies, and she can hear the smile in her voice. Luckily, everyone's too busy greeting him to make fun of her.

Dinner itself is good, even though Shiro makes a crack about usually not being the one who cooks. There's a story behind it, somewhere, probably the same story behind the pictures that have been taken down, but Katie knows that she is still a long way away from finding out any type of secrets. Matt and her father are close with Shiro, sure, but just because she's Keith's soulmate doesn't mean that she'll hear about any of it soon. Words on your body don't automatically make you trustworthy.

Shiro and Matt get into a conversation about some of their coworkers at the Garrison, talking critically of some while praising some of the others. Keith snorts when the name Iverson comes up, but otherwise remains quiet. Her parents discuss something among themselves, but the occasional airy laugh is enough to let Katie know that it's nothing too serious.

"Do you agree with their Garrison assessments?" Katie asks, if not just to hear him talk again. She'd found out at the last dinner that he has two years left at the Garrison, not one, but there's still so much that she doesn't know. "Does Iverson really suck that much?"

"Yeah," Keith confirms, twirling his fork around in his fingers. She could easily take it as a gesture of boredom, but she hopes that it's more of a nervous tic. That way, she can at least pretend that they're sharing a similar type of uncertainty. "He's a total jerk."

"Oh, I've been meaning to ask," Katie continues at the mention of the Garrison, "how come you can, like -  _be_ places? Don't all cadets have to live in the dormitories? Um, obviously don't tell me if you've secretly been sneaking out every five seconds and no one's supposed to know or something." She cringes inwardly at her own ramble, reaching for her glass of water in order to preoccupy her mouth.

Keith, thankfully, doesn't look annoyed, and instead just huffs one of those small laughs. "Shiro helped me work something out. As long as I don't, uh, pull any 'stunts', I can come here after the day's done. Iverson hates it." That makes enough sense. Before she even knew that he was related to Shiro, she'd heard wind of a fighter pilot named Keith with a tendency to get his knuckles a little bloodied.

Katie grins at him. "Nepotism's awesome sometimes."

" _Katie,_ don't be rude," her mother scolds her, apparently having listened in on the conversation, but she can't feel too bad about it when Keith's smiling right back at her.

After dinner, the adults break out a glass of red wine. Even  _Matt_ gets some, his age disregarded, and its enough to send Katie's eyes rolling to the back of her head. She tries her best to be polite and pretends to listen to their conversation, but she can feel herself getting lost in her own thoughts.

She gets jolted back to reality at the sight of Keith standing up. "Can I show Katie my room?" he asks Shiro. She makes eye contact with Matt at the question, who wiggles his eyebrows at her.

Shiro smiles, and his laugh tells her that he'd witnessed Matt's antics. "Sure," he says. "We're being boring adults anyway. Just keep the door open."

The implication turns Katie's cheeks into  _fire,_ but she stands to follow Keith anyway. "Dinner was lovely, Shiro," she says with a quirk of the lips, and lets Keith lead her down the hall.

His room is pretty much what Katie had expected it to be. It's not too messy, but it's certainly been lived in - a pile of clothes on a chair in the corner, posters for a handful of rock bands on the walls, some of the drawers in his dresser still half-open. "Cool," she says, if not just because she doesn't know what else to say. "I like Galaxy Wolves, too. I haven't heard their new stuff, though." She points to one of the posters on the wall, one of the less edgy bands that he has up.

"It's good," Keith says, awkwardly lingering by the door before gathering the clothes on the chair and pushing them on the top of his dresser. "You can sit there, if you want. I'll just-" he slumps down on the foot of his bed. "Sorry to corral you in here. If I hear one more 'oh, nevermind, that's confidential,' I might lose it." His Shiro impression, though done with love, is hilarious, so Katie giggles as she sits down.

"It's fine," she says. "It sucks, 'cause I want to hear more about the mission, but they can't say more than three words at a time. And it's  _all_ my family ever talks about!"

"Same with Shiro," Keith agrees. He alternates between looking at her and looking at the ceiling. "With the other missions, I had Adam to complain to about it, but ..."

"Who's Adam?" she asks, but at his flinch, realizes that she shouldn't have. "Oh, I'm sorry, it's none of my-"

"How'd you get a concussion?"

It's sudden enough to clear Katie of any thought process that she could have had. She considers the question for a moment. "Uncomfortable answer for uncomfortable answer?" she asks, and at his nod, continues - "That kid we talked about at dinner last time, Trevor Cunningham? He, er... slammed my head against a locker. 'Cause I slapped him for putting his hand up my skirt." She debates adding on a  _it's fine, I've healed, it's whatever,_ at the end, like she always has to when she talks to her family about this, but she doesn't. "Whatever Dad and Shiro did worked, though, because he was talking about going to the Garrison this week and asking why he got denied."

Keith doesn't comment on her answer, just considers her with an unreadable expression. "Adam was Shiro's fiancé, but they broke up a while back. He was my family, too, but now it's just Shiro and I." He reaches over towards his dresser and pulls a picture off of the surface, handing it to Katie. It's a picture of Keith, Shiro, and another man with glasses and a wide smile. They look happy.

"I'm sorry," she tells him.

"Same to you," he says, and that's that.

 

* * *

 

" _Ow!_ "

Katie's phone buzzing startles her to the point where she pricks her finger with the needle. She's been quilting, lately, a rather new hobby of hers. There's a box of Matt's outgrown t-shirts in the basement that they'd been planning on donating, so she'd nabbed a few of them in hopes of getting a quilt out of it. If any of her family members find out and ask, she'll say that it's simply for the practice, but she's already thinking about the sleepless nights she'll inevitably have when Matt and her dad are in space. Maybe a quilt of Matt's shirts will help.

She sucks on her pointer finger as she grabs for her phone. It's an unknown number, but it's the same area code, so she figures that it's someone she knows. Tapping the  _answer_ button, she immediately puts them on speaker in hopes of making progress on her quilt. "Hello?" she asks, finger still in her mouth.

"Hey. Is this Katie?" That's Keith's voice that comes through, which is enough to make her rip her hand away from her mouth in surprise. They've hung out three or four times since dinner at his house, their visits having gone from once a month to easily once a week. His voice is a bit muffled, almost as though he's trying to whisper. "Shiro got your number from Matt."

"Oh! Yes! Hi!" she says, and then realizes that she probably sounds too enthusiastic. Shit. "Um - what's up?"

"I snuck my phone into the Garrison," Keith replies. "It was a bad idea, probably."

Katie blinks. She doesn't... she doesn't really know what to say to that. "Okay," she says, putting down her needle with the knowledge that she'll never be able to focus on quilting with him on the phone. "Uh, maybe don't do it again if it's a bad idea?"

"Well. I'm kind of here for the near future," is the answer, a bit of an awkward tone in his voice. "I pulled a stunt."

"You pulled a stunt," Katie repeats. It takes a moment for her to remember the context behind the phrase, but once it settles in, her eyes widen. "Oh. Sorry for your imminent loss of privileges, I guess. Can I ask what happened that was so stunt-worthy?"

There's a moment of hesitation, and she almost debates changing the subject in order to save him from answering. "Don't be pissed," he finally says after a beat. It takes another moment for his words to sink in, but they immediately have her narrowing her eyes.

"What did you do?" It's more of a statement than a question. There must be a reason that he's calling  _her_ specifically, instead of just having Shiro relay the message of him not being able to hang out anymore. Whatever he did involves  _her._  

"I punched the kid that gave you a concussion."

The thing about Keith is that he's so blunt, so to-the-point that Katie's left having to connect the dots herself. Her bully must have gone to the Garrison in an attempt to reapply, and Keith must have figured out who it was. She hesitates for a moment, trying to decide if this actually  _does_ make her pissed or if she just feels this way because he told her not to be. "I don't need you to do that," she says, voice slow in an attempt to keep any sort of emotion out of her voice.

"I know," he says. She wonders where in the Garrison he is - if he's in the dorm that he's been newly reassigned, if he's hiding out in some bathroom stall, or what. The thought of Keith leaning against a stall door with his head in his hands is so ridiculously pathetic that a laugh bubbles up within her. Any anger that she had been on the border of feeling washes away, replaced with amusement.

"Did you hit him good?" she asks. "Might as well go big or go home."

A sound that could either be a choke or a laugh emits through her phone speaker. "I knocked him out."

It pleases her more than is probably morally appropriate.

(When her bully comes into school the next day with a black eye and a handful of lies, she hides her smirk behind her hair.)

 

* * *

 

The next few weeks go by without Keith. She doesn't really have that many friends at school, so it gets ... lonely. She finds herself in a routine almost the same as before: she studies, quilts, oversleeps. Life gets... boring. Unstimulating. Dull. Her family notices, but there's not much that they can do about it. Sure, her mom will bring her tea, and Matt starts hugging her in the mornings again, but what  _can_ they do?

She's at her desk, forehead against the wooden surface. The words on her textbook had blurred into incomprehensible nonsense twenty minutes ago, and her fingers have too many holes in them to justify trying to finish the quilt from Matt's t-shirts, even if it  _is_ almost done. What is there to  _do_?

Katie's so caught up in her own reverie that she doesn't hear the window slide open, but she  _does_ hear the sound of feet hitting the floor. She jolts and turns, eyes widening when she sees who's standing there.

"Heard you missed me," Keith says. He's still in his cadet uniform, his arms crossed as he leans against her window. There's something in his fist, but she can't tell what it is from the distance. He looks around her room with interest, and Katie thanks every god that exists that her mother had gotten on her case about cleaning her room this morning. If he had come into a room with her messy clothes and old Chinese takeout strewn about, she would have  _died._

"How did you  _get_ here?" Katie demands, arms flailing about. Just a few minutes ago, she had been brooding about never seeing him, and now _here he is._  "Hell, how did you even know that this is my window?"

"I snuck out," he answers, as if it's no big deal, and Katie can only pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration. He's such a stereotypical bad boy, and it would be funny if it weren't so exhausting. "And, uh, Matt."

"I'm surprised that he told you," she says. He slumps down on her bean bag next to her before she can even offer him her seat, checking out the telescope next to him. It's weird, seeing him in her room. He seems out of place against the pale color of her walls, but there's also that feeling in her gut that she has whenever she's near him, the one that just feels right.

"He thought it was a good plan," Keith says with a shrug. When he turns, she catches a glimpse of a bruise on his right cheek, bright purple and swelling. It's definitely worse than the bruises that Katie will get by accidentally banging into furniture every now and then, so she freezes.

"Oh shit, are you okay?" she asks, leaning closer in her chair to look at him. "What happened?"

He touches his cheek, almost as if he'd forgotten that the bruise was there. He winces at his own touch, which is even more worrying. "It's fine."

"Are you sure? Because I have a first aid kit, or I could get you an ice pack, or - jeez, how much does that hurt?"

His face twists up in an unpleasant expression. "Drop it," he says, and there's something heavy and irritated under his tone. However, when he speaks next, it's gone. "What are you doing on the 23rd?"

"Uh..." The abrupt question doesn't startle her as much as confuse her, since she actually  _doesn't_ know what she's doing on the 23rd. What day of the week  _is_ that, anyway? "Nothing...? That's a Saturday, right?"

"Yeah," Keith confirms. "It's a good thing that you don't have plans, because I already bought tickets."

She blinks at him, the gears in her brain turning. "Tickets for  _what_?"

He grins, then, something radiant enough to stun her again. "Galaxy Wolves. They have a concert in Phoenix."

Holy shit. She's never actually  _been_ to a concert before, and hasn't really ever put them high on her priority list, either. "I - Phoenix is an hour away and neither of us have a car."

Keith opens his fist to reveal a set of keys, and jingles them in front of her. "I have a bike," he says, very clearly not talking about a bicycle. "Er - if you're comfortable being on the back of it. Shiro could drive us, I guess."

Katie opens her mouth to say something but, not for the first time, has no idea what to say. She's never been on a motorcycle before, and she's definitely not sure if she wants to be on the back of Keith's. However, she's been  _itching_ to see him for almost a month now, so she's not going to turn down an opportunity like this. "If I ask Shiro about your driving skills, will he vouch for you?

Keith perks up a little at that. "Yes." He sounds so damn pleased that he must know where she's going with this.

"Okay then," she decides. " _But_ I can chicken out if I want! And you have to go the speed limit."

"Okay. Deal." He rolls his eyes as he says it, but he still has that  _look_ on his face, as if she's just promised to sail across the world with him. 

It's a look that Katie could really get used to.

 

* * *

 

"Can I go to a concert?"

It's enough to still her father in his movements. He'd been in the middle of leaving for work when she'd approached him, wringing her hands in nervous hope. It had probably been a bad idea to corner him like this, but lately, he'll either come home in the late afternoon or after she's already gone to sleep.

"When? For what? With who?" he replies, after a moment, proceeding in his process of putting his coat on. "I don't feel comfortable with you going by yourself. Matt can probably take you."

"Next Saturday, and the Galaxy Wolves. And, er, no," she says, and she can't even feel hurt at the implication that she was planning on going alone. "Keith invited me."

Her father stills once again. "Keith," he repeats, clearly surprised. "How would he take you there? How would he get out of the Garrison?"

"Uh... he has a motorcycle," Katie answers, cringing at what she knows will be her father's reaction to  _that._ It's always been safety first, fun second, but it's not like she can _lie_ to her father. "And um... I guess he'd sneak out?"

He narrows his eyes. "That doesn't sound very safe. Or appropriate for a Garrison cadet to be doing."

_Shit._

Before she can think of something to say in response to that, he sweeps her into a hug. " _Oh,_ my little Katie is growing up," he says, pride in his voice. "You're in a rebellious phase already. I'm so happy for you. Of course you can go. Just text me at least once an hour. And tell him to go the speed limit. And I'll be talking to Shiro to make sure that he's aware of this!"

Katie takes a moment to process the change of tone, and then shouts a wordless portrayal of joy, hugging her father back. There's no way that Matt would  _ever_ have been allowed to do this at her age, but apparently there are perks of moping around in your room for weeks on end. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she chants. "I'll be safe! I promise!"

"I'm going to be late for work," he says, but he doesn't sound mad about it at all.

 

* * *

 

Keith's motorcycle is bright red and clearly well taken care of. He looks like the cover of a teen romance novel, propped up against it with a backpack slung over one shoulder, but any sort of brooding look disappears when she makes eye contact with him. His bruise from a few weeks ago is almost gone, to the point where she can barely see it unless she's up close. It's a little past four in the afternoon, and he sticks out like a sore thumb in the neighborhood surrounding him. "Katie," he greets with a nod of his head. He has a helmet in his hand, which he offers to her. "You ready?" he asks.

"Yeah," she answers, taking the helmet. She's excited to go, and preferably soon, because she just  _knows_ that Matt and her mom are watching from inside, probably bouncing in excitement and possibly videotaping. Really, Katie must have the only family in the  _world_ who would be excited about her going on an hour-long motorcycle ride to a rock concert with an emo boy three years her senior. She must mess up putting the helmet on, somehow, because Keith smiles and reaches forward. He adjusts her helmet, and she feels rather than sees him tighten the straps so that they rest below her chin.

"What's the backpack for?" she asks.

"For if you want to get a shirt or something. I don't exactly have a trunk to put stuff in," Keith says, and then he studies her for a second.  "You're going to get cold in that," he notes. Katie frowns and looks down at her outfit - she'd actually worn a flannel over her tank top because she'd thought that it would be enough to keep her warm, but she's realizing now that it's already cold. She opens her mouth to tell him that she'll be fine when he starts shrugging his jacket off of his own shoulders.

"No, no, no!" she exclaims, waving her arms around in an attempt to get him to stop. " _You're_ going to be cold. I'm at least wearing a long sleeve!"

"But you're smaller than me," he points out. "I'm gonna be cold anyway. Here."

 _Ugh._ She does not want to be part of some stereotypical chick flick moment where she gets flagged as an idiot and the boy gets flagged as a gentleman. "Then we'll switch," she decides, shaking off her flannel. At his bewildered expression, she presses on. "It'll at least be better than the t-shirt. _And_ you'll be wearing pink, which is everybody's color, right?"

"You're half my size," Keith says, and she perseveres even though he looks annoyed. "It won't fit."

"You'll never know until you try," is her reply, and she tosses her flannel at him. He has no choice but to catch it, begrudgingly tossing his own jacket to her. She slips on his jacket with ease, the sleeves going well past her hands. The jacket that only goes halfway down his torso fits her more completely. She refuses to admit that she's definitely a lot warmer now than she had been a mere second ago.

He looks at her for a second, expression unreadable. He pulls on her flannel, and it looks ridiculous on him, even though it technically fits. "It's not too late to switch back," she tells him.

Keith pulls the flannel on tighter, even though there's no way in hell that it will ever button. "Nah, my jacket looks too good on you for me to ask for it back yet," he says, casually, as if it doesn't turn Katie's cheeks as red as the sleeves of said jacket. He hands her the backpack, and she supposes that it's going to be her duty to wear it, so she slips it over both of her shoulders. "We'll just switch when we get there."

Without any further comment, he swings a leg over the seat of the bike, grabbing onto the handlebars and steadying himself on the cement. "Hop on," he tells her, and she does. Once she's sitting, she's surprised by how  _close_ they are - of course, it makes sense, but it isn't something that she'd considered. She awkwardly puts her hands on each side of his waist, but that must not be enough, because he takes his hands off of the handlebars in favor of adjusting her own hands - placing them so that her fingers intertwine around his front. "Don't fall off," Keith says as he starts the engine, and Katie's stomach twists a little at the very thought.

Being on the back of a moving motorcycle isn't something that she's ever experienced before, nor has she really wanted to, but it's not as scary as she'd thought it would be. She holds on tight to Keith and looks around her - watching the houses and trees as they pass by with a quickening speed. She feels so  _close_ to everything that they pass, even though she knows logically that she isn't any closer than she would have been in a car. But the lack of a car door separating her from the sky and the sun is so undeniably  _lovely._

With her arms wrapped around Keith and his jacket indisputably keeping her warm, she feels free.

 

* * *

 

Katie gets him back for the whole gentlemanly jacket fiasco by pulling out her wallet at the merch store, a smile on her face. "What do you want, Keith?" she asks. The two of them had decided to buy the merch first so that they could get started on their way home right after the show, in hopes of avoiding the post-concert traffic. 

He frowns in response. He's wearing his jacket again, and Katie will never admit that the lack of it on her shoulders feels cold. "I have money," he says, and reaches for his pocket. Without even really thinking about it, she leans over and bats his hand away.

"So do I," she says, overly pleased with herself, and turns towards the bored-looking shop attendant. "Can I have the black tee in a small? Ooh - actually, make it two." She can turn one of them into a quilt for Keith later. "What do you want?" she asks again, and there must be something in his expression that gets him to break.

"Same tee in red, please," he tells the attendant. "Medium."

Katie fist pumps, thankful for the win in the battle that Keith probably doesn't even know he's fighting in. She hands the attendant a few twenties, too excited to bemoan the hit taken to her wallet. Once given the t-shirts and some spare change, she grins, pulling the backpack off of her shoulders so that she can stuff the shirts in them. "Thank you!"

"You're as stubborn as Shiro," Keith says, but he doesn't sound all that mad about it. "Let's find our seats."

The venue itself isn't really that big. Galaxy Wolves aren't  _too_ popular, with maybe two or three hundred people showing up to this concert. Keith leads her to surprisingly  _good_ seats, with only a few rows of people in front of them. However, there's a problem that's becoming quickly apparent: everyone in front of her is  _standing,_ and probably will be for the duration of the concert. And, well, Katie's five feet tall on a good day.

Oh, well, that's fine. She can just stand on her tiptoes and then she then she can  _kind_ of see the stage -

"Katie," Keith says, and she can tell that he's fighting back a laugh without even looking at him. _Jerk._ "Do you need any help there?"

" _No,_ " she declares. "I'm fine. I have no idea what you're talking about."

He gives her a very non-convinced  _mhm_ sound. "You know, my shoulders are free right now."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she repeats, feeling a ramble coming on in her indignation. "Do you mean, like, freedom? Because that's good. I'm glad that they are no longer under the bounds of slavery."

His body shakes with silent laughter, and then he shrugs. "Okay, just let me know."

Katie lasts a solid thirty seconds, but then her toes start to hurt from constantly pushing her up. She chances a glance at Keith, who looks preoccupied with whatever is going on with the stage that she can't even see. She's sure that it's nothing  _too_ important, considering that the concert doesn't technically start for another twenty minutes, but damn, is she curious.

"Would I crush you?" she asks in resignation. When he looks at her, she stares directly into the backs of the people in front of them, not wanting to make eye contact when she's flushing with embarrassment.

"Nah," Keith responds, and crouches down so that he's more her level. "Hop on." It's the second time that day that he's said that, though this time is much less daunting. Both have involved the two of them in intimidatingly close quarters, though.

It's not exactly a graceful maneuver, climbing up onto Keith's shoulders, the latter grunting in pain during at least one knee-to-back collision, but after a while it works out, with her sitting on his shoulders, his hands on her shins for support. The contact makes her smile, and for a moment, she feels ditzy.

She likes him, doesn't she? She has a crush on him. She probably has this whole time, to be honest, but this is the first time that she's truly considered it. It's to be expected with finding your soulmate, she supposes. Even if they don't end up being romantic long-term, they'll at the very least work through her having a silly crush, right? Plus, she reasons that even if there was some mutual romance thing going on, she wouldn't really want to do much more than this. Even kissing feels scary, like something that she doesn't want to do for a while. She's never really had a crush before. 

Ugh. She's totally going to have to have a conversation about this with Matt later.

 

* * *

 

The box of Matt's old t-shirts that she hasn't used yet yield some good finds - an old NASA shirt, a shirt for the Garrison that parents and younger siblings usually buy, and a graphic tee with a starry night sky. That combined with a bunch of old plaid shirts in her closet all add valuable contributions to the quilt for Keith, but she'll still need a good four or five more. Maybe she should stop by the thrift shop two streets over and see what they have...

She should get a second opinion. This is the fourth quilt she'll have made, and the second one to be made out of t-shirts, so she's still pretty new to the whole sewing and quilting thing. She should ask someone what Keith likes so that he can look past the bad running stitches... Her dad? No. Matt? Maybe, but she's not sure that he would know.

Shiro's the clear answer here, but something about calling him is... weird. Asking your soulmate's brother for advice on what to get him? It's not like Keith even has a birthday or anything coming up, she's just doing this because she  _wants_ to, and that's such a glaringly obvious way to make her crush on him known. To be fair, she reasons, it's making her crush known or making Keith a shitty blanket. Both aren't great options, but, well... one of them's superior.

That doesn't stop her from sighing in defeat when she dials in Shiro's number, though.

"Hi, Katie!" is the immediate answer after just two rings. He must have not been doing anything important, which seems rare for a pilot like him.

"Shiro!" she greets. There's something about him that's easygoing to the point where the anxiety she'd felt just a moment ago has mostly gone away. Mostly. "Um, I have a question for you? If you're not too busy."

"Go ahead," he says. "I'm just making dinner. Keith's at the Garrison and I'm alone, so I'm glad you called!"

"Oh, um," she replies, suddenly tripping over her words, "speaking of Keith. I, uh. I have an idea for something I want to make for him, but, uh, I was wondering if you could tell me more about what he likes?"

"He's... tricky to get stuff for, I think," Shiro replies. "He likes what he does at the Garrison, and his bike. He's a dog person. There's the bands he likes, too, but I'm sure you already knew that."

Katie leans over to her notebook on the desk and scribbles down  _dogs_ and  _motorcycle._ If she's lucky, maybe she can find some kid's dog shirt. "Thanks, Shiro," she says, relieved. "Uh, can I swear you to secrecy about this? I want it to be a surprise."

"Of course," he agrees. "You know, I should tell you that you don't have to do anything for him, but I'm really glad you are. It's been hard for him lately, even though he won't talk to me about it. He... he seems happy after talking to you."

There must be some pain in that - admitting that he can't be everything that Keith needs. Her heart fills with sympathy and she decides that, if she can crank one out before Kerberos, Shiro will get her next quilt. "Thank you for your help," she says, voice soft. "I - I hope I can help. Even a little bit."

"I think that you do."

(She starts the quilt later that week, once she has all of the necessary items. Maybe it's the crush in her talking, but every prick of the finger feels worth it.)

 

* * *

 

Because life is full of coincidences, her fifteenth birthday lands on the day before the Kerberos mission takes off. The day itself is wonderful, once she gets past the ache of her family leaving for months to do the exploring that she's always wanted to do. They all go out to her favorite breakfast spot, she eats her weight in French toast, and she and Matt spend a better part of the evening playing with her new gift of Killbot Phantasm I. She never really asks for much when it comes to presents, but her family always delivers regardless. 

It's a good day, really. Even when the family all shares a cry at Matt and her father leaving tomorrow, it's still a good day. That's what she keeps telling herself, so, God, why does it feel like there's something missing?

She tries to work on Keith's quilt, but she can't focus. She tries to read through the Garrison textbook, but she can't focus on  _that,_ either. She can't even sleep because her thoughts are so plastered with the fact that two of her beloved family members are going away in less than twelve hours. It's as though she can do nothing but worry about it. Even though her father's a safety freak when it comes to her and Matt, the same rules do not apply to himself. Both of them would throw themselves in harm's way in the name of science without a second thought. It's a trait that she's proud to share, most of the time, but she's so  _scared_ now.

A clanking sound brings her out of her own head, turning to see the source of the noise. It's - It's  _Keith,_ the dork, banging on her window. When they make eye contact, he mouths the words  _it's locked,_ and points to the handle. Still weighed down by her fears but momentarily freed of them, she stands from where she'd been sitting on the bed and goes to unlock the window. She pulls it open, too, and offers a hand to him. Being Keith, he refuses it, and nearly falls on his face getting through. Once he's all the way in, she notices that he has a shopping bag in his hand, and it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots.

"Keith," she says. "You didn't have to."

"What? You thought I'd miss your birthday?" He hands her the bag, wiping off his jeans. There's dirt on his knees, and she's left wondering just  _how_ he made it to her window on the second floor. It's not like there's anything outside that he could have climbed up besides the wall itself.

"Yes, mainly because you could get expelled for sneaking out," Katie replies, but she takes the bag with a smile anyway. She sits back down on her bed and absentmindedly pats the spot next to her as she reaches her hand into her present. Keith loiters awkwardly for a moment but eventually sits down next to her.

It's a denim jacket. It's a light blue, and just by looking at it, seems to be her size. There are no rips, which she is secretly thankful for, since that was never her style anyway. "Holy shit, Keith," she says, a little out of breath. Aren't denim jackets  _expensive?_ For a teenager's standards, at least? "Keith, this is so nice!" 

She turns to look at him, but he's not returning the gaze, his hand on the back of his neck as he stares at the ceiling. "I figured it'd keep you warm," he explains. "Since there's probably more motorcycle driving in our future."

_Our future._

She wraps him in a hug, the jacket falling into her lap. He doesn't hug her back at first, for such a long time that she almost pulls away and apologizes, but after a moment, he returns it, his hands warm against her back. "Thank you," she breathes into his neck, and now there's a stupid smile on her face that she can't quite wipe off. When they part, he's smiling, too, though it's a lot less toothy than her own.

"No problem," he says, but breaks the eye contact before it can turn into too much. He looks around her room, and she realizes that he's trying to look at everything but her. "I should go. Big day tomorrow, yeah?"

Before she can even say goodbye, he already has one foot out the window. There's an area outside her window that leads to the roof, and he stands on it for a moment, looking back at her. She opens her mouth to say  _what just happened_ or maybe  _are you okay,_ but he waves and then moves to a sitting position, his legs dangling off of the roof as he  _pushes himself off_.

Ugh. Boys. He totally could have come in the front door to begin with, but  _no,_ he's too cool for that. And he's apparently too cool for any sort of affection, their past deep and personal conversations disregarded, so he just had to scamper off like a fearful deer.

Katie closes her eyes and buries her face in her hands. Why does her life have to be so confusing?

 

* * *

 

Katie, her brother's glasses heavy against her face, decides that she wants to be Pidge.

Pidge, who will put science first. Pidge, who can be who her family  _knows_ that she can be. With her brother's glasses and her newly-loved nickname, she feels as though she can take on the world. Even when she's fighting back tears in her eyes and watching the spaceship that holds three beloved people to her take off, she still feels strong.

She stays standing there for a while before deciding that she should go find her mother. She wouldn't want to make her wait, on a day as emotionally-strung as this. It's weird to think that just yesterday the four of them were all together and happy, and now, two of them are on their way out of the planet.

When she turns, though, she sees Keith. He's standing alone, having wandered back to where the spaceship was when it took off. His head is tilted upwards, as if he's trying to still see glimpses of the ship. It's long gone by now, and the sight of him still standing there  _searching_ is heartbreaking. Without even really meaning to, she walks over to him. It might be a little awkward, if the way that he bolted last night is any indicator, but she figured that it will be worth it in order to make sure he's doing okay.

Pidge doesn't say anything, though, when she catches up to him. He turns his head down and to the side to look at her, but once he realizes who it is, he looks back up. Words seem useless right now, even to her. She glances up at the sky, instead, trying to see the spaceship too. Even though there's nothing but clear blue sky, she continues to look upwards, wondering what it's like in that spaceship right now. Is Shiro ordering her father and brother around? Does Matt have a grin on his face that he just can't wipe off? Are her father's eyebrows furrowed with his eyes squinted, the way that his face looks when he's stressed out?

She stands next to him for what could be a few seconds or fifteen minutes, alternating between looking at the sky and looking at him. After a while, she remembers where she had originally planned on going, and figures that it's time for her to go home with her mother. "Bye, Keith," she says, even though she'd never actually said hello. "I'll see you soon."

He looks at her again, but even though he has already, he startles. "Matt's glasses," he replies, and reaches out to touch the frame. It's a surprising contact, but it's over quickly, with his hands lingering by his sides shortly after. "Bye, Katie."

Pidge decides that she likes her name when it comes out of his mouth, so she won't ask him to start calling her Pidge just yet. Maybe later, when she's more in the mood to talk about Matt again. "Don't be a stranger," she says, voice almost a whisper, the sentence an echo of one of the first things that she had ever told him.

His lips twitch into a smile so small that she almost misses it. "Okay."

 

* * *

 

The world crashes down.

Everything hurts. Pidge spends a day crying in her room by herself, an endless sea of tears that never stops even when her eyes and nose hurt and her head throbs from the dehydration. She calls Keith once, but stops after he doesn't pick up. He's probably mourning just as much as she is, even though she sure would like to have him here so that the two of them could mourn together. But he doesn't pick up, and she doesn't want to call again, so she grieves by herself.

_Pilot error._

On the second day, she cries with her mother. They barely leave the couch, the television long since turned off, as they wipe tears away and hold each other. There are so many things that Pidge  _wants_ to say, ranging from  _they can't be dead_ to  _I've never hurt so bad before,_ and she realizes that the house will be so empty with it just the two of them. She spends the night in Matt's room, not sleeping, just staring at his walls and wondering how things could have all gone so wrong. But she was never meant to just sit here and do nothing, not when there's a chance her family could still be out there, so she decides that she needs a plan.

The third day comes and Pidge shows up at the Garrison, her face still puffy and bright red. Iverson is civil enough to her on the first day, when she asks nicely. He declines her requests to know what happened and consistently tells her that she should go home to rest, saying that they _all_ mourn with the Holt family as he pushes her out the door. She sees right through it,  _knows_ in her heart that there's something that they'll never tell her, and she needs to know. God, if her family's alive, she needs to know.

The fourth night, she breaks in, but she doesn't even get past the first hallway before a guard sees her and starts shouting. "You and that fucking Kogane kid, I swear to shit," he says as he grips her hands behind her back, his breath hot and unpleasant on her neck. "At least we could expel him." The realization that they've expelled Keith tastes cold in her mouth. What kind of horrible people expel a kid for presumable bad behavior the same week that his brother goes missing? It's only further proof in her mind that there's something that they're hiding.

On the fifth day, she has bruises on her shoulder from where she makes contact with the dirt when they throw her out. She aches both physically and emotionally, but she realizes that she's not going to get anything done this way. She goes home and whips open her journal, scrawling down words and ideas in an attempt to figure something out,  _anything_ that she can do. In the end, everything's crossed out except for one phrase:  _Pidge Gunderson._

She has a plan, now, and it starts with Keith's quilt. She finishes it that night, even though her shoulder burns with every movement and her eyes cloud over more than once. It takes her until early the next morning, but she's proud of it when it's done. She'd cut up the t-shirts (and pair of pajama pants that she'd snagged from the thrift store for their puppy print) into strips, and balanced with the plaid, you can barely even tell that all of her fabric was from old t-shirts. It's bordered with a black fabric, and it actually looks... nice. It's definitely the best one that she's made so far, and she's proud that it's going to Keith. 

Pidge lays the quilt out on her work table, and writes  _Keith, this is for you. Love, Pidge_ on a page in her journal, before ripping it out and placing it on the quilt, folded neatly to cover the ripped edges. She has her phone out with her thumb over the  _call_ button for almost ten minutes, knowing that the second she says what she's going to say, her plan will be officially in action. With her fake IDs and hacked Garrison registry list, she's all ready to go. But calling Keith makes it  _real._

When she presses the button, she's the opposite of surprised when the phone rings for the full thirty seconds and goes straight to voicemail. Keith had never bothered to set up his personal voicemail greeter, which is kind of a bummer, because she sure would love to hear his voice right now. After the beep, she pauses, trying to figure out where to start. "Hi, Keith," she says, and she realizes how raw her voice is. She hasn't spoken in twelve hours, and she's been awake the whole time, giving her voice a croaky quality. "I made something for you. I don't know where you are, so I can't get it to you. Um, it'll be in my room? My mom will let you in, so you don't have to channel your inner gymnast and go up my window. Heh." She pauses again, heart heavy in her chest. How do you tell someone who just lost his only family member that you're going away, too? "I'm leaving. I - I have a plan, and I'm  _going_ to find all three of them. I swear. I... I don't think I'll be able to contact you for a while, not that you really want to be contacted. I'm sorry."

She hesitates and stares at the wall for a moment. For a while, she wonders if she's going to cry, but realizes that she's all cried out. The only thing left in her heart is determination. "I'm going to get them all back," she says, voice strong, "and I'm not sure when I'll be back again, but I'll see you when I see you, yeah?" She stands, then, phone still pressed against her ear. Her time is running out. "Goodbye, Keith."

Hanging up is almost harder than calling him in the first place had been, and she throws her phone onto her bed. She can't bring it with her. Anything tying her to Katie Holt now is... a bad idea. Her fingers reach for the scissors that she'd used for cutting up the fabric, and even though she knows they're not ideal, it's the best that she can do.

Cutting hair with scissors not intended for doing so is hard. If she's lucky, it cuts through on the first try, but she has to hack at most of her hair, leaving the strands frayed at the end. The end result is bizarre to look at, and she already misses her old hair, but it's worth it. When she pushes Matt's glasses onto her face, she looks more like him than she does Katie Holt, and it's something that she relishes in.

Katie Holt is officially reported as missing the next day. Her phone buzzes a dozen times, unanswered.

(She never hears Keith on the other end, making sure to hang up before he begs for her to answer.)

 

* * *

 

Pidge likes Hunk and Lance well enough, even though she doesn't spend much time with them. Sure, they're easily the people at the Garrison that she talks to the most, but she spends most of her free time tinkering with machinery, trying desperately to set it to Kerberos. Hunk is nice and gives her space, even though she's pretty sure that he reads through her diary, and Lance is annoying and kind of rude, but he grows on her to the point where she considers him a friend.

Friends, however, can sure be ridiculous.

The three of them are eating lunch, Pidge spacing out while Lance and Hunk talk about a variety of topics, the subject often switching by the time that she can realize what they'd been talking about before. There's some rival of Lance that he refuses to mention by name, instead referring to the guy as We-Know-Who, even though Pidge very much does not know who. All she knows about the guy is that he apparently got socked in the face while defending some girl. She knows better than to ask Lance for more details, though, because once, when she'd tried, Lance had gone on a fifteen minute ramble about  _wow, so you really do care!_

"Pidge," Hunk says, snapping her out of her reverie. He's waving his hand in front of her face. "We asked you a question!"

"What, sorry," she says, shaking her head as though to physically dispel her thoughts. "Say again?"

"We were asking you about your soulmark, if you have one," Hunk says. "We know it's kind of personal, but we've been friends for like, five months now, right?"

"Mine's awesome," Lance brags, because of  _course_ something as mundane as soulmarks has to be a competition. "Her handwriting's really pretty, too, so I can tell that she's pretty."

Pidge rolls her eyes. Of course that's Lance's deciding factor, not about intelligence or wits or whatnot. She should say that she doesn't have one, since that would be the most sensible to keep Katie Holt a secret, but hiding Keith feels unkind at best. "I have one," she says. 

"Me, too," Hunk says. "Hey - I'll show you mine if you show me yours?"

She should say no, but this is the first time she's really thought about Keith in  _weeks._ Usually, she can push aside every thought that doesn't include Matt and her dad, but now he's back again, bubbling at the surface. "Okay," she says. "You first."

Hunk pulls the collar of his shirt aside, revealing a  _Nor are you._ on his collarbone in curly handwriting. The words are bright white, and it's funny how that happens, how somehow whatever decides their soulmarks knows how to make the words most visible. "I don't know anyone who still says  _nor,_ but, like, that's cool," he says, clearly pleased. "Maybe they're a Shakespeare nerd or something."

"Cool," Pidge repeats, smiling. She's glad that Hunk has someone, since he seems like he deserves it.

"Your turn," Lance says. She jolts, almost having forgotten what she'd agreed to do. Shit, maybe she should back out? "I'd show you mine, but it's on my leg, and I am  _not_ taking my pants off in the middle of the dining hall."

"You better not," she tells him, and after only a slight hesitation, pulls up the sleeve of her right arm. She hasn't had time to really look at it in a while, so she smiles at it. Keith's handwriting is dorky, and the fact that he apparently writes in cursive all the time makes her grin wide.

"I didn't know you had a brother," Hunk says, and oh, shit, showing them her soulmark was probably a bad idea. "Is he cool?"

"The coolest," Pidge agrees, voice incredibly fond. "He, uh, he's been away for a while, so I miss him a lot."

Lance, however, is peering closely at her arm. "She has pretty bad handwriting," he says. "Actually, it looks kind of familiar-"

" _He,_ " Pidge corrects, mainly because she can't help herself, "does have pretty bad handwriting. At least it's legible."

Lance and Hunk, to their credit, don't flinch at the gender of her soulmate, which she sure would appreciate if she were actually a guy. "Woah, you've met him?" Hunk says. "At fifteen? That's so cool! What's he like?"

Thoughts of Keith burn, and she turns away so that they can't see the tears that she blinks away. Since when is she such a crybaby? "He's  _good,_ " she says, nodding even though no one has asked her a question. "He - I haven't talked to him in a while. I hope he's okay."

They don't bring up soulmates again.

("Maybe he's straight," Lance whispers to Hunk that night, when they're getting settled for bed. "Maybe Pidge is in love with him but he's straight!"

"Shut up, Lance," Hunk says. "It's none of our business."

"I'll fight him for Pidge," Lance decides, ignoring Hunk. "That's what true homies do.")

 

* * *

 

_I'm so close to a breakthrough that I can feel it._

_I feel so close to my family. I feel like one more line of code, one more idea, and I'll figure it all out. I'm going to get them back. I'm going to get them **all** back._

_I wish he knew how hard I was trying. I wish I could contact him._

 

* * *

Seeing Shiro on the camera feed both breaks her heart and fixes it up again. He looks so pained, so  _afraid,_ in a way that she wouldn't even really be able to tell if she didn't know him so well by now. But if  _he's_ alive, that means that her family could be, too. "They didn't ask about the rest of the crew," she says, and it's hard to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She's still so close.

"What are they  _doing_?" Lance asks, voice a combination of disbelief and indignation. "The guy's a legend, they're not even going to listen to him?"

"We have to get him out," Pidge decides immediately. If there's anyway that she can save Shiro and get him back home safe, get him back to  _Keith,_ she's going to do it. Shiro is her family, too, and has been for a long time.

She doesn't recognize Keith at first. She sees his figure, but he's mainly a blur. It's just a guy with a bandanna wrapped around his mouth like some edgelord. She opens her mouth to make some comment, but Lance beats her to it.

"No way! Oh, he is not going to beat us in there! That guy is always trying to one-up me!" Lance says, voice bordering on yelling. This must be the guy that he's always talking about being rivals with, but will never say the name of.

"Who is it?" Hunk asks, not making the same connection that she has. The two boys are already running, but Pidge stands in place, confused.

"Keith!"

Pidge's sentence chokes in her throat. It - it has to be the same Keith, right? Everything connects right then. The guy who always got on Lance's bad side with the hot temper. The guy who got expelled. Keith. It's him. He's  _here._ "Who?" she asks, just to make sure that she heard him right.

"Are you sure?" Hunk asks, and oh, they both  _know_ him. That's why they'd said that his handwriting was familiar. They've known Keith this entire time and-

"Oh, I'd recognize that mullet anywhere!"

It has to be. It  _has_ to be. "Who's Keith?" she says again, if not just because she  _achingly_ wants one of them to say his full name, to clarify what she already knows. God, is she about to see her soulmate again? She runs after them, footsteps heavy in her ears. The three of them run into the ship that Keith has already run into, Pidge right on Hunk's heels. She needs to see for herself. Two of her best friends, one who she'd thought was dead and one that she hasn't seen in  _months,_ in one place again.

She sees him before he sees her. She loiters with Hunk near the entrance, watching as Keith and Lance hold up Shiro together. He hasn't noticed her yet, too busy interrogating Lance on who he is. If she wasn't so strung out, she'd find it funny that he has no idea of the rivalry that Lance has spent months speaking about. Then, he glances up at her and Hunk. He looks back at Shiro almost immediately, before he jolts and looks back up at her. His mouth opens and she watches his lips form her name, silent though they may be.

 _I'm so sorry that I left you,_ she thinks, but Hunk's dragging her out of the ship before she can say anything. They climb onto the hover bike after Keith and Lance, and whatever moment that they just had is gone in the determination to get away. It's crowded, though, and she ends up holding Shiro, her arms wrapped around him tight. In a dizzying moment, she remembers being on the back of Keith's motorcycle, holding _him_ tight, and the similarities are so baffling that she laughs.

Being on the hover bike is, well, terrifying, but it's not too much worse than being on the motorcycle. She grips onto Shiro and closes her eyes, listening to Lance yell at Keith and Hunk scream. She's not entirely sure where they're going, but it can't be worse than the Garrison, right?

 

* * *

 

She manages to keep her cover for about two minutes. The second that they're in the shack and Shiro has been put down onto the couch, she practically jumps Keith, her arms wrapping around his waist and tugging him close. He doesn't hesitate this time, hugging her back immediately. He kind of smells like sand and sweat, and it's pretty gross, but she assumes that she doesn't smell much better. She's spent the last several months hoping that he wouldn't be too angry with her, so the returned affection is a relief.

"Uh, guys?" Hunk says from behind them. "Do you two know each other?"

"Shut up, Hunk," she says, muffled into Keith's jacket. He laughs, then, something that she wonders if he's done very frequently lately, making her pull away to look up at him. "Hi."

"Hi," he says back. His hand finds her hair, combing through the messy locks. "You look different."

Lance, surprisingly, gets it first. " _Keith Kogane_ is your soulmate, isn't he?" he demands. "He's the guy that you're mega in love with and write sad things about in your diary?"

" _Lance_!" she says, withdrawing to look at him in disbelief. How could he say something so unbelievably _mortifying_ without a second thought? "How did you-"

"I read your diary," Hunk admits, in an attempt to keep her from strangling Lance. He must know that she likes him better. "I told Lance! He's my roommate! I can't keep secrets!"

Pidge groans, burying her face in her hands. "I'm going to die." Keith puts his hand on her shoulder, and she doesn't even have to look at him to tell that he's thoroughly amused.

They're interrupted by the sound of Shiro groaning. Keith is by his side in a second, supporting his head as he wakes up. "Shiro! Are you with me, buddy?"

"Keith," Shiro says, blinking his eyes open. Once they are, he visibly relaxes and pulls Keith into a hug. "You're here? Where are we?" His eyes open over Keith's shoulder, and bounce from Hunk to Lance to her. His eyes widen, and all she can do is smile at him with a wave. He smiles back.

"I can explain everything," Keith says as he pulls back into a standing position, and even though his back is to Pidge, she's sure that he's smiling at him. "Just wake up a little first, okay?"

"Okay," Shiro agrees. "Katie, are you going to give me a hug or what?"

It takes Pidge a second, but she ends up laughing, despite her secret wide out in the open now. "It's Pidge now, I think," she says as she walks over, leaning down to give him a hug. 

"Matt's nickname for you," he says in recognition, nodding slowly. "It's good. I like it."

"Wait,  _what_?" Lance exclaims in the background, loud enough that everyone turns to him. " _Katie_? Why'd Shiro call you Katie?"

"Uh..." How does she respond to  _that_? She goes the teasing route, since it's the easiest. There goes her long-protected cover of being a boy. "You didn't think  _Pidge Gunderson_ was my real name, did you?"

"Of  _course_ I did! It was on your student ID!" he says, arms flailing around in a way that's almost comical. "Wait, you're a  _girl_? What the shit? First Keith Kogane is your soulmate, and next, you're a  _girl_?"

Shiro gives her a small smile. "Sorry for blowing your cover."

"You're, like, half-conscious," she replies, grinning at him. She'd take a blown cover over a still-missing Shiro any day of the week. "You are very easily forgiven."

"That explains  _this_ picture," Hunk says, and she's completely shaken when she realizes that it's the picture of her and Matt that he pulls out. She reaches up and grabs it, and when she glares at him, he at least has the decency to look sheepish. "I thought that was you and a girlfriend, but then you told us about your soulmate and your brother, so I figured you were trans or something."

"Oh my God," Lance announces, still shocked from the revelation. "I've peed in front of you! I'm _so sorry_!"

 

* * *

 

She sits outside of the shack that night, staring up at the night sky. Shiro and Keith had been having some sort of serious discussion that she hadn't wanted to intrude on, so she'd come out here. That had probably been about an hour ago, but she's content to lay low and be by herself. It's sure been hectic enough of a day for her to deserve some time to herself.

She startles slightly when something warm and heavy makes its way across her shoulders. She looks down and sees black and plaid. It takes her longer than she'd like to admit to connect the dots, but when she looks up at Keith behind her, it all makes sense. "You found it," she says, voice thick with relief. "You got my voicemail."

"Yeah," he agrees, moving to sit down next to her. He's silent for a moment, before she sees him look at her out of the corner of her eye. Not ready for the closeness that that eye contact would bring, she keeps looking up. "I was angry."

"I figured," she responds, voice quiet. "I'm sorry for leaving. I - I had to."

"I know," he says, and his voice is quiet, too, even though his tone is intense. "I didn't get it. I looked for you. I looked  _everywhere_ for you."

Pidge sighs, rubbing her eyes with her hands. He'd left her, too, in a way. The calls that he never answered appear in her mind, like a barely-there memory. "I looked for you, too."

"I would do it differently," Keith says, and that must be his version of an apology, so she accepts it. "Going off the grid like that with no warning."

"Me, too," she agrees, finally looking at him. "I wish I'd been able to say goodbye properly."

"I looked for you more once I found this place," he says, gesturing to the shack behind them. "I figured that even if you didn't want to go home, you could come here. Never really crossed my mind that you were in the Garrison all this time, masquerading as someone else."

It's a nice thought, being out here alone with Keith, trying to solve the mystery that she's had little luck with over the past several months. "I didn't get very far," she admits. "Sure, I made some tech to track them, but tonight? Finding Shiro? Is the closest I've gotten, and I didn't do anything at all."

"We'll find your dad and Matt," he says, instead of really answering. "We'll do what needs to be done. I swear."

"Thanks, Keith," she answers, and she leans into him. His arm wraps around the blanket on her shoulders, pulling her close. It's nice. "I missed you."

"I missed you," he repeats, and then he must think of something embarrassing, because his eyes squint a little and he looks away. "I, uh, your mom let me grab some of your clothes in case we found you and you wanted to be away from home. There's a bag under the couch."

It's completely unexpected, but it warms her heart in a second. She hugs him properly, her other arm reaching around him to press him close. "Thank you," she says, even though she doesn't necessarily feel like changing right now. "God, thank you."

She looks up so that their faces are only an inch or so apart, the tip of her nose brushing his. "You're welcome," he says, and then he kisses her.

It's kind of embarrassing, how bad she is at kissing him, with teeth and their noses bumping into each other. She ends up laughing at her own obliviousness so much that they break apart, but he reaches forward and kisses her again. They get into a rhythm after a while, once she kind of figures out what to do with her hands and her nose, and it's nice. She's not sure that she would like to do this with anybody but him, but it's really,  _really_ nice.

"Oh," she says afterwards, and she can't stop smiling.

"Oh," he repeats, and his fingers find their way into her hair again. Pidge wonders if he misses it long, with how much he's been stroking it today. "I've wanted to do that since that concert."

The comment makes her flush, and she looks down at the ground to smile stupidly at the dirt. "Yeah, me too. You just looked  _so_ cute in that pink flannel, huh?"

He rolls his eyes and taps her cheek, moving her head just a bit.  _A love tap,_ she realizes, and that makes her even more giddy. 

 _I love you,_ she thinks, though she won't say it just yet. Instead, she touches his jaw and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> I had such a hard time writing Keith in this. If he's out of character, I'm going to blame it on the fact that this is an AU where he grew up with Shiro so he's had a more stable home environment. Yup.


End file.
